Tell me about an amazing woman in history that I may not have heard about?

has suffragette annie kenney been mentioned? she was from lees, oldham.

There's a retelling of the story of twenty-six women heroes of the Second World War in this book

She has her own section in Helen Castor's She Wolves, along with Matilda, Isabella of France and Margaret of Anjou.

I'm off to have a look on amazon for a cheap book on her Gossamer, got me interested now. I don't know much about her, just what I remember from my French dates book!

anothernumber I tried to squeeze loads in about Countess Constance in my A2 History coursework.....my teacher kept making me cut it down :-p very cool woman

also like the Alexandra Kollontai mention whoever posted that

great thread OP thanks

But Eleanor of Aquitaine had to leave her 2 daughters behind in France.

She also fell out with Henry and spent much of her later years locked up away from their children. I love her but she was hard because she had to be :(.

We have lots of them in Ireland associated with the struggle for independance in the last century Maud Gonne and Countess Markievicz to name but 2.

Adan Menken is amongst mine with many others mentioned above, but I have to say there are some kick ass biblical women like Esther

What about Annie Besant? She was a Victorian vicar's wife who lost her faith when her child got really ill, so her husband kicked her out. She became a campaigner for rights and freedom. She led the Bryant & May Matchgirls to the first ever successful strike of unskilled workers in the UK (the year before the famous dockers' strike, who, as brothers and lovers of the match girls were probably inspired by their success.) She used to practise oratory from her husband'spulpit until he booted her out and was, apparently a brilliant public speaker.

When she'd done that she went off to India to campaign with those rebelling against British rule. She comes over as really unegotistical and fair. I'd love to have met her. She's my big historical crush.

smallclanger me and my mum LOVE Buffy! we have a stuffed toy buffalo named after her

I loved Suzanne Rodriguez's biography of Nathalie Clifford Barney, an out lesbian writer who was famous for her Paris salons in the first half of the C20th. Haven't read about another person who seemed to love life as much as she did.

She featured in The Well of Loneliness as Valerie Seymour :-p

Colette is well known, but she needs a mention.....she is my favourite.

Janet Flanner....journalist who published lots of articles about Paris life in the New Yorker.

Hmm.....Alienor d'Aquitaine (sp?). Separated from her husband the King in 1152 and seized his regions for herself which later became his rival's (the King of England who she married)- big fuck you to her ex!

ILoveNiyaz report the thread and ask for it to be moved in the comment box.

Teresa of Avila

Aleksandra Kollontai

Elizabeth Kenny, an unqualified, self-taught Australian bush nurse who pioneered a controversial treatment for polio, involving manipulation of affected limbs in the teeth of accepted medical practice at the time (which was to immobilise in plaster). Although derided as a dangerous quack, she persisted and eventually her methods were accepted, becoming the foundation for modern physiotherapy.

Marie Marvingt - early C20th French aviatrix, WWI combat pilot, one of the first ever "flight nurses" and a pioneer of the air ambulance concept.

Delia Derbyshire - electronic music pioneer and BBC Radiophonic Workshop member. It was she who arranged Ron Grainer's original Doctor Who theme for electronic instruments - the "oo-wee-OOOOOOO" bit was her idea, basically. That is still one of the most recognisable pieces of electronic music today. Also Daphne Oram, another Radiophonic composer. There were no instruments available on which to perform these two women's ideas, so they made their own, or used tape looping, the precursor to sampling. Both had had to battle hard to be allowed to work there at all.

Buffy Sainte-Marie - composer of both an Oscar-winning film song (Where We Belong) and a folk standard (Universal Soldier). Has lent her hand to lots of musical styles, all the while using her music to raise awareness of Native American issues and culture. She is also not afraid to experiment and push the boundaries of her own culture's musical traditions, challenging some sexism there.

Eileen Collins and Pam Melroy - space shuttle commanders of multiple successful missions.

Peggy Whitson and Suni Williams - former Alpha Commanders of the International Space Station.

Lella Lombardi - winner of multiple sportscar races and the only female driver to score points in a Formula One race.

ALMOSTMRSG
Gladys Alyward.
Her story was told in the film Inn of the Sixth Happiness.

What a woman! Thanks for telling us about the film. I will definitely be watching this.

Ask for it to be moved to somewhere? It'll stay forever!

Gladys Aylward

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Aylward

Unbound many Chinese children's and women's feet and rescued many orphans.

What a lovely inspirational and uplifting thread. I'm sad it's on chat and will be deleted in 90 days, I've bookmarked it so I can research more about about these great women

My offering is Isabelle Eberhardt

Such an adventurous, courageous, fascinating, captivating woman. A true free soul. An excellent travel writer and intrepid traveler.

She was illegitimate and born into an aristocratic family and spoke 6 languages, her and her aristo mother converted to Islam, specifically sufism which was quite 'scandalous' back then. She traveled across North Africa in 1890 something, on her own dressed as a man! She called herself Si Mahmoud Essadi and died in a flash flood at the age of 27.

One of her quotes that inspires my travels :

“The cowardly belief that a person must stay in one place is too reminiscent of the unquestioning resignation of animals, beasts of burden stupefied by servitude and yet always willing to accept the slipping on of the harness. There are limits to every domain, and laws to govern every organized power. But the vagrant owns the whole vast earth that ends only at the non-existent horizon, and her empire is an intangible one, for her domination and enjoyment of it are things of the spirit.”

The Nomad: Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt If I ever have a DD, I think I might name her after this woman.

Almost You beat me to it!

Oh and you will have heard of her but not of all her achievements - Beatrix Potter was actually a very accomplished botanist and mycologist (someone who studies fungi).

Gladys Aylward. She worked as a parlourmaid in London, before taking herself off to China to work as a missionary. She did lots of good work there, before leading 100 orphans across the mountains to escape from the Japanese. Not bad for a parlourmaid.

Many have already been mentioned, but here's the Royal Society's list of the 10 most influential British women in the history of science.

Gladys Alyward.
Read about her at school and story has always remained with me. She was a Christian missionary who led over 100 children over the mountains in China to safety from the invading Japanese. She had little education and paid for her own ticket to China. Became a foot inspector for the Chinese government enforcing the ban on foot binding carried out on young girls and ran an orphanage.
Her story was told in the film Inn of the Sixth Happiness.

You've probably heard about several of these, but:

Wangari Maathai (envionmental and political activist, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize)

Phillis Wheatley (poet and former slave)

Mary Walker (doctor, surgeon, suffragist and abolitionist)

Henrietta Leavitt (astronomer whose discoveries enabled the distances to remote galaxies to be calculated)

Gertrude "Trudy" Ederle (Olympic swimmer; fifth person, and first woman, to swim the English Channel)

Alia Muhammad Baker (chief librarian of the Central Library in Basra, who managed to save 70% of the library's collection during the siege and bombing of Basra)

Maria Merian (naturalist, botanical artist, first to document many new species, made important discoveries about the lifecycle of butterflies and moths)